Unsung Class of 2007

A few good strokes of luck

November 5, 2007

Editor's Note: This article is part of The Journal's annual Unsung Heroes feature. The stories in this series run from Memorial Day to Veterans Day, and feature profiles of veterans who served in wars and conflicts from World War II to the present day. MARTINSBURG - Prince Nicklin marks his two years spent in a U.S. Army uniform by a few well-timed strokes of good luck. Drafted in April 1952 at the height of the Korean War, the 21-year-old Martinsburg native missed being "enlisted" in the Marine Corps while stationed at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland when, during a lining up of new draftees, he was not one of the soldiers to get a tap on the shoulder by an officer. "The officer announced that they needed some Marines ...," Nicklin wrote in a handwritten account of his military service. "He stated he would walk by the entire group in line and touch every seventh man on the shoulder and he would take one step forward and those men were Marines slated for Parris Island, (South) Carolina." "I never dreamed that anything like that happened, but I was a witness," Nicklin said during a recent interview. Spared being selected for the Marines, Nicklin finished basic training at Aberdeen Proving Ground and later completed specialist ordnance school where he received ordnance supply depot training. Students with the top seven scores were retained by the school as instructors for incoming classes. Nicklin received the eighth-highest score in his class and stayed behind at Aberdeen to work in the supply house as a clerk, handing out supplies and uniforms to new recruits. That was his second stroke of good luck, he said. Staying at Aberdeen meant he could go home to Martinsburg on the weekends, which he did regularly, hitchhiking from Baltimore, and then getting a lift back to base on Sundays from an officer. One such trip home from South Mountain found him in the back of a produce truck atop a bed of vegetables, he said. "I learned to love (U.S.) Route 40," Nicklin said. When the commanding officer at Aberdeen instituted a policy that every soldier with more than a year to complete of his service would be shipped overseas to Korea, Nicklin, who had 13 months of duty remaining, was given a 10-day furlough and orders to report afterward to Camp Kilmer in New Jersey. Home again in Martinsburg, before being sent overseas, Nicklin presented Teresa Hamilton with an engagement ring and asked her to wait for him. They were married in 1955, and remain so 52 years, and three children and five grandchildren later. "She was the jewel of my eye and still is today, and she waited the year for my return ...," Nicklin wrote in his journal. After arriving at Camp Kilmer, Nicklin was informed that the troop ship that had been scheduled to take him and hundreds of other soldiers to Korea departed two days before his arrival, and his orders had been changed. He would be shipped to Europe instead, he was told. His third stroke of good luck. Nicklin was assigned to an ordnance depot outside of Nancy in northeastern France, arriving there by train from Saarbrucken, Germany, in the spring of 1953, and he was ordered to work at the depot's security office. Millions of dollars of military hardware were stored at the depot in preparation for an invasion of western Europe by the Soviet Union. It was at this job that Nicklin said he violated one of the key pieces of advice one is given in the military: Never volunteer for anything. When the call went out for an office clerk, Nicklin, who studied typing in high school and had been employed as a clerk at Standard Lime and Stone Co. in Martinsburg before being drafted, volunteered for the job. Nicklin said the decision, which put him to work in an office and kept him out of the weather, was the fourth bit of good luck he chanced upon during his time served with the Army. While stationed in Europe, Nicklin visited Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Milan in Italy, Frankfurt and Mannheim in Germany, Bern and St. Moritz in Switzerland, and Luxembourg, where he stopped at the simple grave of Gen. George S. Patton. At St. Mihiel American Cemetery in France, Nicklin visited the grave of Pfc. James E. Thompson, a World War I veteran and his mother's youngest brother, who died of influenza in 1919. He also stopped at the Douaumont Ossuary, a memorial that houses the remains of French and German soldiers who died during the 300-day Battle of Verdun and resulted in the deaths of more than a quarter of a million people during World War I. Nicklin, who was promoted to corporal while stationed in France, returned home following his discharge at Fort Meade in March 1954, and to his old job at Standard Lime and Stone Co., where he continued working until his retirement in 1991. He freely acknowledges the good fortune that accompanied him through his military service. "To my way of thinking, every boy didn't have to shoot or get shot at," he said. "I had my strokes of luck, and came back and said, 'Hurray,' and I'm a better man for answering the call. I can look in the mirror and say I have no regrets for doing what my country called me to do." - Staff writer Robert Snyder can be reached at (304) 263-8931, ext. 129, or at rsnyder@journal-news.net